Gram's Final Request

The last thing Gram let me do for her was get the quilted blanket out of the cabinet. It was classic Gram, asking for something in a way that made me feel like I was the one on the receiving end. By the time it happened, though, I was so grateful for a chance to do anything that might bring her comfort that I didn’t mind in the least.

I only wish I’d believed it was the end.

***

Gram was all there on the inside, even that night, as hard as it is to believe. It was her body that failed her. I’d watched my grandfather go the other way, screaming near the end that Gram wasn’t his wife because he’d married a woman who was young and beautiful, never knowing the wounds his words dealt or the scars that would linger when he was gone. It wasn’t really him saying those things, we knew, but that didn’t help as much as you might think.

Within a year of Grandaddy’s passing, Gram chose to move into Sunrise Glen, an assisted living facility. It had been her choice, and she’d been able to afford a nice little apartment that allowed her all the autonomy she desired, as well as all the care she needed. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Glen had other buildings, each transitioning to a greater level of support, until one day I found myself visiting Gram in a room that smelled of antiseptic, with sterile tile flooring and hospital cabinetry storing her few remaining possessions.

“I got the window seat,” she said, her gray eyes twinkling. Once those eyes had been blue, but the years had worn them to chipped flint. She gestured with a hand that was heavy beneath a carapace of purple veins, her arm bumping the plastic oxygen mask dangling around her neck. If she could have moved further, she would have tangled herself in tubes and cords.

“This place has always been nice,” I said, adding, “I still remember your first place here,” as if that had been a long time ago.

“Your grandfather wouldn’t have been happy here,” Gram said. “He never wanted to live under a roof he didn’t build himself.”

“There aren’t many like him these days,” I agreed, smiling fondly.

“There weren’t back then, either.”

She smacked her lips, an audible sound despite the constant hum and beep of medical equipment and the patter of conversation in another room nearby. Her tongue, like dried leather, darted inside her mouth, and her eyes strayed to the pitcher.

“Can I get you some water?” I asked.

She glanced away and shrugged. “Okay,” she said, as if I’d offered her one more bowl of pudding even though I knew she had eaten her fill, and also that she didn’t much care for pudding. That was Gram. No matter how much she wanted what you were offering, she pretended it meant nothing to her at the moment it was offered, and she would never ask.

I poured water into a plastic cup and put it in her hand. Then I hovered nearby—though not near enough for her to accuse me of hovering—while she raised it to the broken ridges of her lips and sipped. I tried to ignore the sick-person odors wafting off her, which whispered of hasty sponge baths and chamber pots and living decay. She moved the cup away slightly, signaling me to return it to the hospital table at her bedside.

“I should close the window,” I said.

Gram shook her head.

“You don’t want to catch a chill,” I pressed, and she turned her penetrating gaze on me with the power of a woman half her age. Chastened, I took my seat.

“The owl is back,” Gram said.

“Oh?”

She pointed to the screen again with a blunt fingernail. Her nurses kept them trimmed, but they had thickened with age. “It flies by the window. I can hear its wings.”

“I haven’t heard an owl, Gram.” I waited for a reaction before going on. She offered none. “It might be a bat. Maybe I should tell someone.”

“Mallory darling,” she said, explaining with her tone that no one would be told. “Not all owls hoot. The one out there is barn owl. They hiss, usually, but when your time comes, they screech.”

“Gram,” I said, admonishment mingling with surprise in my voice. “Don’t talk like that.”

She dismissed my concern with a slight roll of her eyes. Last week I had listened as she explained that she was ready to go. “After all this time, I finally miss your grandfather’s voice,” she’d said and looked to the drop ceiling as if to say, Can you believe it? That’ll last five minutes after we’re together again.

I’d responded with a polite laugh that night, but this felt different. Tonight, Gram’s eyes were deep set, shadowed, and her jaw twitched with an irregular muscle spasm that I had never noticed before. She hadn’t slept well in years, but lately she had barely been sleeping at all. Minutes at a time, sometimes drifting off in the middle of a conversation only to pick up where she had left off with no awareness of the intervening moments.

“Mallory darling.”

“Yes, Gram?”

“We need to talk about your father.”

I blinked. Gram hadn’t mentioned him since I stopped asking when I was a small child. He was a face in the old photo albums and little more.

Before I could say more, she went on. “When I’m gone, you’re going to feel lonely, and you’re going to think about contacting him.” Her eyes shot my way, silencing any protest. “It’s okay. Just remember the type of man he is.”

“The type who left his daughter with her grandparents and ran off across the country,” I said, not bothering to mask my bitterness. “Gram, I wouldn’t—”

“We’re the only family each other’s got,” Gram said, cutting me off without raising her voice. “You haven’t found anyone special yet. Probably because you’ve been taking such good care of me. But when I’m gone…”

She said more, but I didn’t hear it. I could guess where it went, reiterating her belief that I’d go hunting my errant father, but all I heard was the echo of probably the kindest compliment Gram had ever given me. You’ve been taking such good care of me. Every diffident glance, every disinterested shrug, every non-committal acceptance felt abruptly validated. My eyes stung, and I leaned forward in my chair to mask dabbing them against my sleeve.

I’m not sure how long the room lay silent before I realized she had stopped talking. Probably just a few seconds, but when I looked up, she peered back at me. Her cheeks, loose folds due to rapid weight loss brought on by her condition, had lost much of their remaining color. My mind scrambled to replay what I had missed. There had been a sound, I realized. It had come through the open window, an extended trill that carried long enough that it might have borne a message to someone who knew to listen.

“I guess that’s that,” Gram said. She turned her eyes to the foot of bed and stared.

***

Her sunken eyes retreated deeper, where faint glimmers of light hinted at the left and right of her dilated pupils. Her papery brow furrowed. When her shoulders began to shake in worsening paroxysms, I jumped from my seat and reached her side before the beeping heart monitor picked up its pace.

“Gram.” I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, feeling only bone beneath her thin hospital gown. I heard a slow breath leave her, and the heaving of her shoulder subsided. She was already recovering.

Resigning, I thought.

“It was a bat,” I attempted, but her lips pressed together in a disappointed grimace that only deepened our gloom.

I finished my thought, regardless. “It can’t mean anything.”

She settled back onto the raised portion of her bed. I noticed that her heart rate was already back to normal, but the numbers offered no relief when I could see her face. She believed the end was coming, and with it had come the realization that she wasn’t ready to go after all.

I didn’t hesitate or ask permission. I closed the window.

“I’ve heard that sound twice before,” Gram said without looking up. “The last time was the night your grandfather passed.”

She paused, and I realized what she was about to say an instant before she began to speak again. There was no way to brace myself against it.

“The first was on the night you were born.”

“Gram.” My tone was pleading but I couldn’t help it. “Don’t.”

“Your parents couldn’t get to the hospital because of the snow. All our technology, even then, but nothing makes it safe to drive on ice. Your grandfather overreacted when your mom said she was cold, and before we knew it the thermostat said it was a hundred degrees. We opened windows to let some air in. That’s where I was standing when…it happened.”

When I killed my mom. No matter how many counselors I talked to, that was the voice that always spoke first when I considered my birth. I had begun my breathing exercises as soon as I realized she wasn’t going to spare me, but I still shut my eyes against the pain.

Gram went on, and this time I had to hear every word. “The old barn owl came out of the loft at that moment, and it let out a long screech that shook me to my core. I didn’t think much of it then, but over the years, especially after your grandfather’s health got worse, I started to think back on it.”

Her eyes focused on nothing at all. Her hands continued their muscular spasms, but no sign of her panic remained. Gram was rattled, but the actual rattling had passed quickly, which was as much a part of her as her refusal to ask for anything. Gram wasn’t tough as nails. Nails were tough as Gram.

“I was sitting with your grandfather when he passed. You knew that.”

It wasn’t a question. I’d been at work when it happened, so she had been alone to care for him.

“The owl came to the window and hissed.” Gram drew out the word into a menacing whisper. “It waited for me to turn and get a good look at it before it flew off, screeching, and it took him with it. I knew then it would be back for me when my time came. Probably because I heard it take your mother. I don’t think I was supposed to know what it had done. That sort of thing is supposed to stay private.”

“Now, Gram,” I said, my concern growing. “The owl didn’t—”

“Probably not,” she said, so softly that I couldn’t speak over it. Her gaze drooped lower. She said nothing for several minutes. The steady beeps and hum kept time over her shoulder, but there were no more conversations down the hall. This part of Sunrise Glen held regular visiting hours, which had come to an end while Gram reminisced her worst memories.

I settled into my seat, quietly defiant. She noticed.

“Mallory darling, you need to go. You’re still new at work. They need you, and you need the job.”

I knew what she meant. I hadn’t been there long enough to earn bereavement leave, and soon I would need what little vacation time I had accrued to say good-bye. I tried to swallow, but my throat was working too hard. I couldn’t speak, and then I couldn’t find any words. I cast about, looking for any topic, and latched onto the first thing that came to mind.

“Gram, did you want to tell me something about Dad?”

She didn’t exactly shrug this time, and her eyes met mine before falling away. “We can talk about that if you’d like.”

I didn’t like, and on this topic, I couldn’t even feign interest. We sat in silence a few minutes longer. She didn’t encourage me to leave again, but we had run out of things to say. We listened to the rhythm of the monitors and the occasional clap of nurse’s heels on cold tile. Someone down the hall sneezed.

***

“I’m sorry, Gram, but I do have to go. Can I get you anything?”

She twitched a headshake, but all I saw were her lingering worries. “If you want,” she said, “you can get my blanket from the cabinet.”

It felt like a gift. Some tangible thing I could do for her that might ease her worries. I opened the door and found two folded blankets inside. When I was a kid, Gram’s closet had overflowed with blankets and towels. It was impossible to get one without two more tumbling after in its wake. Seeing just these two made me stop, considering all she had lost.

Gram may have mistaken my hesitation. “The quilted one is mine,” she said. “The other one was your father’s. When I’m gone, you should have it.”

“Well, we can talk about that tomorrow,” I told her, unfolding the heavier blanket as I returned to her bedside. “This will keep you warm.”

She nodded, but not in agreement. Her eyes had unfocused again, lost in dark reverie.

“Gram?”

She glanced up, startled by the sound of my voice.

“I’m going to stay. My boss will understand.”

“No,” she said, pressing her lips into a thin approximation of a smile. “You need to go.”

I stood there, knowing that she believed we were saying good-bye for the last time, well aware that I had entertained those same, dire thoughts a dozen times over the past six months. “I love you, Gram.”

“I love you, Mallory darling.”

She blinked, but her ducts had no tears left to shed. She raised the shaking hand that was free of her IV and I bent to hug her. She felt weightless in my arms. Her hair smelled of hospital shampoo and sweat.

I had to swallow before speaking again. “I’ll see you tomorrow. As soon as I’m out of work.”

She offered another weak smile and the faintest of nods.

I stood in her door for ten minutes before leaving, watching her doze in the hospital bed, eyes closed. The quilted blanket engulfed her, making her appear even smaller. I fought the urge to creep back to my chair and spend the night by her side, listening to her breath hitch beneath the current of the monitors.

Come back tomorrow, I told myself. I would need all my vacation time when the day came. If I let some random owl get under my skin, then I’d lose my job the same week I lost my grandmother, and she’d never forgive me if I let that happen. It didn’t occur to me until weeks later that she had told me to leave when I offered to stay. There had been no passive aggression, no passivity at all. And I had listened.

I was five minutes out of the parking lot when the call came to tell me Gram had suffered cardiac arrest. Just the tone of the nurse’s voice when she said my name was enough to put my foot on the break, and before she had finished telling me that I needed to come back right away I was accelerating out of my U-turn. The sound of that nurse’s voice is one of the two things I remember with perfect clarity from that night. It never fades.

The other thing I remember is the window in Gram’s room. It was open again. Four people in white coats stooped over the bed, two men and two women, all of them strangers to me. I looked over their backs and saw the open window, and I remember thinking, She went with the owl.

***

There wasn’t much left of what Gram had brought to her new home, which is the nature of such arrangements. A nurse wearing a regretful expression brought me a worn, green blanket and said, “She asked me to make sure you got this.”

If it weren’t for the gravity in her expression, I may have misplaced the blanket in the chaos that followed. Although I remember the phone call and the open window vividly, I have no recollection of the hours that followed. There are flashes of sympathetic faces and syllables—no actual words—in matching tones. I stood until I had to sit, and at some point I held Gram’s hand. Her grip startled me, and the doctor looked away as I stared and then sobbed.

I took the next few days off work. Gram had made arrangements long ago, through the Glen, but there were papers to sign and decisions on timing for her services. I was missing her when I came across the green blanket again, and I unfolded it intending to wrap myself in it and feel close to her. When the envelope fell out, I stared at it, not comprehending what it might contain.

On the back she had written my name in the calligraphic letters she used for cards and envelopes. She wrote it out the way she always said it, Mallory Darling. Tears stung my eyes, but inside I found no final good-bye. Instead, she had placed a half-dozen pictures of a man whom I recognized from Gram’s albums, each image more recent than the last. There were dates in black ink on the back of each. The newest had been added just a month before she entered assisted living. Under the date, in Gram’s flowing hand, was a ten-digit number.

You’re going to think about contacting him, she had told me.

Of course I would. She’d made sure of it.

“You want me to call him?” I asked my empty room.

Characteristically, I got no response. I imagined her shrugging and looking away as if to say, If that’s what you’d like to do.